I was struck recently by the fact that 144 is double 72, the number of disciples that Jesus is supposed to have sent out at one point, according to the Gospel of Luke. Some manuscripts have 70, some 72, and I don’t have a clear sense that one or the other is much more likely to be original. Both 7s and 12s had symbolic resonances within Judaism. 72 is 6×12 and 12 has apostolic as well as Israelite resonances. But... Read more
My Sunday school class returned to the Gospel of John as part of our discussion of women in the Gospels, looking at the story about the Samaritan woman in John 4. One Sunday we spent clarifying what is likely the case when it comes to her life story, the “everything she ever did” that Jesus showed awareness of. Among other things it was observed how trips to the well were the ancient equivalent of “meeting by the water cooler.” I... Read more
As I’ve been writing about the Doctor Who episode The Battle of Ranskoor av Kolos I’ve been paying close attention to elements that casual viewers might miss, at least at a conscious level. The lighting (or lack thereof) in the episode seems particularly striking to me. The music is as well, even when considered within the context of a season’s worth of distinctive music provided by composer Segun Akinola, whose approach to composition is very different from the melodic-symphonic character of... Read more
Jayson Bradley wrote something so powerful and on target that I felt I should highlight it here on my own blog: Don’t tread on me Christianity in America is so entangled with patriotism and exceptionalism. When asked to shelter in place, Christians don’t think it’s odd to deck themselves out in G.I. Joe cosplay complete with AR-15s to storm a government building and demand their rights. But at the same time, they’re unflinching in their support of authority being misused against... Read more
I had the idea to create a playlist to accompany my book, What Jesus Learned From Women. Some of these individuals have been the focus of a lot of music, while others little or none at all. I think the mixed success that my efforts have met with says something about which stories resonate with composers as well as with worshipping communities. The ways that these women’s stories are turned into song also illustrates how their lives and stories are interpreted.... Read more
We finally wrapped up our study of the Gospel of John in my Sunday school class a while back. It seems like ages ago. This was when we were still meeting face to face, if that gives you any indication. There were a lot of really helpful things that came up in discussion as we neared the end, including many that I hadn’t thought of adequately or hadn’t approached in quite the way the class discussion led me to. And... Read more
In the past I’ve discussed the possibility that Joseph’s marriage to Mary was not his first marriage, that he was a widow and significantly older than her. There are several pieces of circumstantial evidence in the New Testament Gospels that made me take this possibility seriously. Although it could well have been created just to justify the idea of Mary’s perpetual virginity, I had always thought it was too early and too widely held a view to be just due... Read more
A few years ago, Mike Bird posted the first “Let’s all do X and then tag others and pass it on” blog post that anyone had done for a while. Here’s what his proposal was: I want to launch a series whereby bibliobloggers nominate “a book that you’d be surprised that I like.” Sounds simple enough at first. But given his choice, which is not surprising because of its perspective but because it is not widely known, I find myself... Read more
I found myself thinking about this topic once again as I was working on my book What Jesus Learned from Women. I’ve written in the past about the question of whether Jesus was thought to be illegitimate, using the implications of the interactions he has with contemporaries as a more reliable guide than specific things that characters in the Gospels happen to say. In addition to my article in Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, see also Robert Miller’s... Read more
I’ve been thinking about a couple of sayings of Jesus and the possibility that the one gave rise to the other for a while now. The two sayings are “come to me…take my yoke upon you” and “come after me…take up your cross.” When John Squires blogged about one of the two sayings, I decided it was time to share my thoughts with a wider audience: Come to me, take my yoke, I will give you rest (Matt 11; Pentecost 6A)... Read more
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